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Public Asks Copyright Office to Allow Common CD/DVD Uses

Electronic Frontier Foundation Encourages Public Comments

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today
announced that it helped 245 consumers submit comments to the
Librarian of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office requesting
protection for certain ordinary uses of CDs and DVDs.

The consumer comments supported the EFF's December 18 request that the
Librarian of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office grant four
exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in order to
permit bypassing of certain technological protection measures for
copyrighted works.

Currently, the DMCA prevents users from making the following four uses
of some digital media:

Listening to copy-protected music CDs on certain stereos and
personal computers

Viewing foreign movies on DVDs on US players due to region-coding
restrictions

Skipping through commercials on some movie DVDs

Viewing and making fair uses of movies that are in the public
domain and released on encrypted DVDs

The commenters described their difficulties with the DMCA's ban on
bypassing technological locks on copy-protected music CDs and movies
released on DVD:

55 comments described problems people had experienced with
copy-protected CDs, ranging from inability to play music that they had
purchased to complete computer operating system crashes requiring
major computer repair.

130 comments focused on problems playing foreign movies on
region-coded DVDs. One person originally from Denmark expressed
sadness and frustration at not being able to play movies his mother
gave him. Others discussed special interest works, such as anime, and
foreign movies that are only available outside of the United States,
but unplayable on U.S. DVD players.

Many parents wrote comments describing their concerns about
unskippable commercials and promotional material in a number of Disney
movies released on DVD.

Several people also expressed frustration about the limited use that
could be made of particular public domain movies, such as Charlie
Chaplin's Movie Marathon, which was released on a CSS-encrypted DVD.

"The large number of comments reflects consumers' growing concerns
about the DMCA and the very real impact that the law has on their
lives," said EFF Staff Attorney Gwen Hinze.

"These EFF-inspired comments alone count for more than the total
number of comments the Copyright Office received during the previous
rule making in 2000," added EFF Activist Ren Bucholz. "We're hopeful
that the Copyright Office will listen to the growing public voice
demanding reasonable uses of their own CDs and DVDs."

FCC Considers Broadcast Flag for Digital Television

Electronic Frontier Foundation Fights Hollywood Tech Mandate

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today renewed
its opposition to Hollywood's "Broadcast Flag" proposal, advising the
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to set aside Hollywood's
latest bid to undermine fair use and stymie innovation by requiring
all manufacturers of digital television (DTV) devices to seek
Hollywood approval before bringing their technology to market, and by
banning the use of open source software in DTV applications.

EFF replied to comments the motion picture companies and their allies
submitted to the FCC seeking to place control over DTV devices in the
hands of the same companies that tried to ban the VCR.

EFF's filing replied to comments to the FCC from the motion picture
companies and their allies, which argued that the DTV transition would
not take place unless the Commission gave control over the design of
all DTV devices to the motion picture companies -- the same companies
that fought to ban the VCR from the market.

"The 'threat' of DTV piracy is both nonexistent and implausible," said
EFF Outreach Coordinator Cory Doctorow. "The 'solution' proposed by
Hollwood would only slow down the DTV transition by raising the cost
of digital television devices while reducing their value."

"Hollywood's own admissions about the 'analog hole' -- which are in
the Congressional record -- mean that the Broadcast Flag will do
nothing to slow down such unauthorized copying as may occur, while
setting the stage for even more restrictive mandates,"

"Despite what Hollywood will tell you, this has nothing to do with
Internet piracy. Instead, the broadcast flag is Hollywood's effort to
control the future of TV technologies. If they get this technology
mandate, Hollywood will be in a position to force innovators to
negotiate before building new digital television products. Remember,
these are the same companies that, in 1976, sued to impound the VCR
and, today, will tell you that skipping commercials is stealing,"
added EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann.

From the EFF comments: "Proponents of a broadcast flag mandate indulge
in considerable hyperbole regarding the 'threat' posed to DTV by
'Internet piracy,' but have failed to come forward with any evidence
demonstrating that Internet redistribution of DTV content poses a
problem today or that it will in the near future. Moreover, what
evidence has been submitted in this docket makes it plain that
high-quality content has not been withheld from DTV broadcast as a
result of fears regarding Internet piracy."

The FCC is considering whether to enact a technology mandate that
would force all DTV products to respond to the Broadcast Flag -- a bit
of data implanted into DTV broadcasts that define when and whether
programming can be copied. The proposed Broadcast Flag mandate would
effectively force consumer electronics and computer companies to
implement a DTV infrastructure for content protection.

The FCC initiated the Broadcast Flag proceedings last summer after
receiving a letter from Senator Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, author of the
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA). The
CBDTPA is a sweeping proposal that would require technologists to seek
permission from entertainment companies prior to making new
technologies available to the public. Industry observers have
described the Broadcast Flag as a "mini-Hollings Bill".

EFF has led the effort to educate the public about the Broadcast Flag,
attending every meeting of the Motion Picture Association of America's
Broadcast Protection Discussion Group and popularizing relevant issues
on the "Consensus at Lawyerpoint" weblog.

Mailing List Headaches? Contact us.

EFF believes that delivery of legitimate e-mail needs to be carefully
protected as a fundamental part of any solution to the spam problem.
Unfortunately, we've lately learned that more and more opt-in mailing
lists are being mislabeled as spam and wrongly blocked. EFF is
looking for people who administer opt-in e-mail mailing lists and have
had difficulty because their messages have been mislabeled as spam,
causing delivery to fail. Our hope is to connect the folks facing
this problem so that they can work together to find a global solution
that both respects the Internet as a place of free speech (and e-mail
as a vital organizing tool) while protecting Internet users and
sysadmins from the problems that *real* spam causes. Contact
mailinglistsheadaches@eff.org.

Got Esq? Join the EFF Cooperating Attorney List

It probably comes as no surprise to EFFector readers that EFF has many
more requests for assistance than we can possibly handle by ourselves.
One way that we try to get legal assistance to those who need it is
through our Cooperating Attorneys list. When we get an interesting
case that we can't handle, or one where we need additional help, we
send a short, non-privileged request to the list. If an attorney on
the list is interested, he or she just sends us a note, and we pass
along more details. Most of the cases seek pro bono assistance, but
others are paid cases. The cases involve cyberlaw issues -- such as
First Amendment, intellectual property, surveillance and trespass --
and can be either civil or criminal.

If you are a licensed attorney and would be interested in helping EFF
with an occasional case, please send a note to henry@eff.org, letting
us know the jurisdictions in which you practice and your areas of
expertise, and we'll add you to the list. Thanks in advance for your
help.

Deep Links

Deep Links features noteworthy news items, victories, and threats from
around the Internet.

Labels Move to Scan AU University Email Servers for MP3s
Citing universities and public libraries as two of the "biggest
repositories of unlawful sound recordings," several music companies
are asking the Australian Federal Court to force universities to
preserve all data on the servers as evidence against students.

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